Someone to watch over me

doctor.“
    “I’ll just wash it off. It’ll be okay,“ Roxanne insisted.
    Lily joined them and rolled up Roxanne’s dungaree past the knee. The wound was still bleeding, but not in gushes. “Come on inside and I’ll wash out your dungarees after I put some peroxide on this,“ Lily said.
    “Shouldn’t she use alcohol?“ Eugene asked. “Here, let me carry you inside.“
    “You’ll do no such thing, Gene. I’m really all right. Let Lily and me tend to this.”
    He insisted if she didn’t need carrying, she at least had to lean on his arm. Roxanne glanced at Lily and smiled, half-apologetically. “Just keep an eye on the children, Gene, while Lily fixes me up.”
    He was reluctant to leave, but finally did so when Roxanne started to unfasten her dungarees. She sat down at the kitchen table, extending a long leg on another chair, wincing as Lily dabbed her knee clean and tied a fresh dish towel around it. Then Lily went upstairs to get Roxanne a skirt to put on.
    “What’s that in the bag you brought?“ Roxanne asked, tugging the skirt over her head.
    Lily pulled out the hat. “Phoebe had this in her shop and asked me to drop it off.“
    “It’s a lovely hat.“ Roxanne stroked the shiny, elaborately woven and highly varnished black straw. “Mrs. Rismiller loaned me a black dress. It’s quite long on her, but just long enough on me to cover my knee. I haven’t bought a black dress since my mother died so long ago, and that one doesn’t fit anymore.“
    “I think you can always trust a minister’s wife to have an extra black dress,“ Lily said. “Now, you better get outside before your brother thinks you’ve bled to death.“
    “Poor Gene. He worries so about me. Thank Phoebe for the loan of the hat. I’m sorry, but I have to get back to work. There are some kind of bugs on the watermelon foliage I’ve got to get picked off and drowned in a tin can, before the fruits are ruined.”
    After Lily set the blood-soaked knee of the dungarees in peroxide in a kitchen bowl, she trudged back up the hill, musing that the woman was burying her husband the next morning but was still more concerned about her garden. But then, she couldn’t be blamed for insensitivity. The garden provided for her family, no matter what else was happening in Roxanne’s hard life.

Chapter 25

    It seemed as if half the town came to the funeral. Not for Donald’s sake but out of respect for Roxanne. Eugene cried. The children looked confused and frightened. Roxanne stood tall, all in black, mute and expressionless. She only appeared to relax slightly after the cheap coffin was lowered into the ground.
    The only notable person in town who didn’t attend was Howard Walker. He’d told Robert to observe Roxanne in his stead. He felt the sheriff shouldn’t be there and cast a further pall on the event.
    “I don’t see why not,“ Robert said.
    “Because everyone would be watching to see if I arrested her at the end of the service.“
    “Are you going to arrest her?“
    “I hope not,“ Walker replied.
    Robert was surprised when Eugene, still red- eyed, asked to speak to him privately after the service.
    “I want you to thank your sister for getting those hobo girls a job that keeps them away from my sister’s vegetables.“
    “Do you know for sure that’s who’s stealing them? Have you seen them do it?“ Robert asked. “There are a lot of hoboes around these days.“
    “I haven’t exactly seen them do it. But lots of times after dark I go outside with my pellet gun to scare off the raccoons and deer, and I’ve heard them talking and laughing in the woods. I can’t let anyone or anything steal from Roxy. She works too hard to have that happen to her. Thank your sister for me. They haven’t been around since she set them up as a band. It was a good thing she did.“
    “Why couldn’t he have told me himself ?“ Lily asked, when Robert told her what Eugene had said.
    “Probably doesn’t like to talk to women, except his sister. He’s such a quiet, shy fella.“
    “He’s awfully protective of her.“ She described the incident the day before with Roxanne’s skinned knee. “It’s good that he’s so devoted to her, being as her no-good husband wasn’t.“
    “Are we supposed to be going to the Anderson house now with casseroles and flowers?“ Robert asked.
    “No, Roxanne said she didn’t need any more company or food and just wanted to go home and tend her garden.“
    “Then how about we go to